


tilt my sun towards your domain

by RC_McLachlan



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Erwin doesn't reprimand him for not knocking, and Levi doesn't snap that social niceties are bullshit in a world being pulled apart; instead, Levi joins him on the floor of his tiny office, presses into the empty space at his right side, rests his head on Erwin's chest with a weary sigh, and it's enough.</em>
</p><p>Winning a war in 50 sentences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tilt my sun towards your domain

**Author's Note:**

> this can be read as a single story or as 50 individual stories; the vignettes are not in order… or maybe they are. 
> 
> many thanks to [infromunder](http://archiveofourown.org/users/infromunder) for holding my hand, allaying my fears, and basically being the awesome person you always are. also, thanks to [hitlikehammers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers) for going over this with a critical eye despite not knowing what the hell you were reading, and cheerleading me on like always. you ladies are the tops.

**#23 - Question**

There's a charge in the air, a sharp and buzzy thing like the coming of a summer storm, and something nameless and warm pulls at the corner of Levi's eyes when he answers, "You're an idiot… Ask me again after this is over."

 

**#01 - Walking**

There is a grace in Levi's gait, in the surety of his stride, that could never be demonstrated by hook or wire, and yet Erwin finds himself snagged and bound regardless.

 

**#03 - Wishes**

Each and every time they make the long, silent journey back to the gates, their shoulders weighted by failure and fear, he looks to his right where the sun catches on dark strands of hair matted with sweat and blood, and thinks, _Would you come with me if I asked, if we could run until we lost the land, until we found the sea and washed this all away?_

 

**#04 - Wonder**

"I read… in, _ahem_ , a book that doesn't officially exist—" A snort "—that humanity once went up there," Erwin says, gesturing to the sky, pregnant with possibility, stars stretch-marked across its belly, and Levi's eyes go gratifyingly round in disbelief and something else too fragile to name just yet.

 

**#05 - Worry**

It's entirely unprofessional and Mike will surely give him hell for it later, but he doesn't stop himself from straightening the drape of fabric puddled across Levi's shoulders before allowing him to mount his horse, as if smoothing the wrinkles in his cloak will forge it into better armor.

 

**#16 - Breaking**

"Hold onto me, Captain," Erwin whispers, grips Levi by the hair, the cloak, the heart and lungs and mind, keeps him from flying everywhere like the bones and blood of their brethren that are scattered through the countryside, like lost friends and false hope, and Levi… Levi is so very good at following orders.

 

**#07 - Waste/Wasteland**

He dreams they win, and when the gates open for them to collect their prize, there is nothing but blood-scorched earth and the shuffling, accusing bodies of their dead come to claim them.

 

**#22 - Quirks**

Erwin stares at the broom, at the headscarf and the neckerchief, at the terrifying glint of determination in flat eyes, and ventures, "… Is this an assassination attempt…?"

 

**#10 - Weddings**

The request comes in a non-descript fold, slipped under his door long after sensible people have retired for the night, and Erwin reads it by the fading light of his last candle… reads it twice, tries to connect the names—Klara, Brigitte—to faces before deciding it hardly matters; he signs it quietly and palms it off to Brigitte during drills.

 

**#28 - Jousting**

"He's going to kill someone," Levi mutters, and Erwin smiles and says, "He's improving," and on the practice field, Eren makes a liar out of him by bringing his new, lighter sword prototype down with a roar of fury and somehow snagging it on his cloak and smacking his face off the ground.

 

**#12 - Blessing (sequel to #10)**

"You and Brigitte will take the rest of the day, and congratulations to you both," he murmurs to Klara, whose smile breaks over her face like the sunrise over a world without walls, and as she runs to tell her new wife the news of their impromptu honeymoon Erwin lifts an eyebrow at Levi's nonplussed expression, daring him to comment.

 

**#09 - War**

"Limiting our funding—Don't those fat fucks know what we're fighting for?!" Erwin watches him pace the length of the room in the hopes that Levi might enlighten him, because he certainly doesn't know anymore.

  


**#11 - Birthday**

He stands in the doorway for several moments before he realizes the tiny cake with its dollop of cream and single, perfect strawberry isn't going to disappear from where it sits innocuously on his desk, and it isn't until he sits down that he notices the tiny scrap of paper underneath it and the smile on his face, as wide as a Titan's grin, breaks into open-mouthed laughter at the scrawl of _You really don't need this._

 

**#13 - Bias**

"He's a loose cannon; don't let… whatever you think he is to you cloud your judgment," Mike murmurs into his mostly-empty glass of cheap whiskey, and Erwin snorts, gazes into the amber liquid in his own tumbler, and sounds convincing to his own ears when he replies, "I wouldn't dare."

 

**#14 - Burning**

A fire rages in the gut he's long-since turned to steel, in the heart he's offered up countless times to the whole of humanity, in every single part of himself, and when the Titan swallows his arm he stares up at it from the ground and viciously hopes the flame consumes it from the inside out.

 

**#35 - Sarcasm**

"'Trust in the military police'—yeah, and I'm a fucking pretty princess," Levi sneers; Erwin smiles up at him and says, "The prettiest of them all," and it's absolutely worth the bottle of ink lobbed at his head.

 

**#50 - Defeat**

Erwin is grateful for the months and months of training, of learning to school his expression so not even a little of what lurks beneath his skin is revealed, because the hardest task he's ever taken on in his life is to not to laugh at the way Levi stares down at the slain form of his king upon the board, as if he never imagined Erwin capable of such treachery.

 

**#27 - Jester**

Levi takes one look at Erwin—who's reporting for duty clad in an apron about eight sizes too small and holding a dustpan proudly in his only hand—and says, "Get out."

 

**#15 - Breathing**

He wants to pound his chest so that the vibration mixes with the steady beat in its cage of bone and blood and reverberates as tribute, but the only thing he can offer now is his right lung; heart, lung—it's all the same to the enemy.

 

**#17 - Belief**

"Do you really think we'll win or is this just more of your motto bullshit?" The _snikt_ of the blades disengaging from the locks fills the air, and Levi stares down at the practice Titan he’s just felled; Erwin follows his gaze and says, "Yes."

 

**#18 - Balloon**

"Hanji, no."

 

**#06 - Whimsy**

There is a house on a grassy knoll by the sea with windows drenched in sunlight that look out into a sky that isn't shadowed by walls; there are two pairs of boots left on the front step lest they track sand in, and every single room is immaculate, but books overflow on shelves made of driftwood and shells collect in old milk jars like secrets, maps carefully rolled and leaning in clean corners; there is a single bed made with fresh sheets, but the mattress dips slightly in two places, the pillows creased, and in the wardrobe are soft linen shirts for summer and folded blankets for the colder months; there are two sets of worn leather harnesses pushed into the darkness, allowed to gather dust and time, out of fashion and unnecessary; there are kisses that taste of black tea and fine sugar, and laughter that is unfamiliar as it is beautiful, and words of poetry and philosophy and history that trip from sweet tongues in the hush of the night, and fading calluses and old scars and reverent fingers that drag over them in slow moments that are never stolen; and there is Erwin's smile when he replies, "What I want to do when this is over… ah, Levi, I haven't really thought about it."

 

**#08 - Whiskey and rum**

Fingers pockmarked with scars and calluses drag up the too-hot skin of his throat, stretch to cup his jaw, and he wants this, he wants, he _wants_ , but it isn't desire that flows through the veins of Humanity's Strongest tonight and Erwin is a monster but not such a one; the glass decanter across the room provides the means of his reluctant escape.

 

**#02 - Waltz**

Levi squints at him and says with a frankly insulting amount of incredulity, "'Fighting Titans is like a dance'? Do you even know _how_ to dance, fat ass? Hell, do _they_?"

 

**#20 - Bane**

He's never known pain like this—it's not the sting of Titan blood on his skin as it dissipates, or the creeping drag of broken glass and stone over his insides as he writes death notice after death notice—and he hasn't the words to describe it as it radiates from the stump, but when Levi leans down to press their foreheads together and whisper, "You prick… you are the worst thing that's ever happened to me," it's tolerable.

 

**#21 - Quiet**

Erwin doesn't reprimand him for not knocking, and Levi doesn't snap that social niceties are bullshit in a world being pulled apart; instead, Levi joins him on the floor of his tiny office, presses into the empty space at his right side, rests his head on Erwin's chest with a weary sigh, and it's enough.

 

**#45 - Natural**

"Your penmanship is beautiful," Erwin remarks, squinting at the short proposal that Levi had shoved under his nose, written in elegant, looping lines and sweet nicks of a quill, and knows that this was not the product of a formal education but the result of a young man who had something to prove not to the world, but himself; Levi sucks air through his teeth and looks away, cheeks red.

 

**#19 - Balcony**

Levi swirls his glass of wine, a vintage worth more than Erwin's own life, before pitching it over the edge; they stand with their arms just shy of pressing together and stifle their snickers like children as the noble ladies walking on the courtyard patio below begin to shriek.

 

**#24 - Quarrel**

"You expect me to accept this?!" Levi stalks forward, every part of him visibly straining against the treachery, the _betrayal_ he perceives his to be, and the walls and Walls tremble in the face of his rage, and Erwin could do or say any manner of things—yell, cajole, bellow, order—but he goes straight for the jugular when he pulls Levi in with his remaining arm and whispers, "I don't expect anything, but I'm asking you to."

 

**#25 - Quitting (sequel to #24)**

"If you can't fight, then I'm finished," Levi bites out; Erwin chuckles and presses his lips to Levi's hairline, murmurs, "You are not, and neither am I."

 

**#26 - Jump**

He knows the proper thing would be to ask, "How high?" but the words catch in his throat, expanding until the skin bulges and he gags on them, and the king waits and waits for Historia's location and a list of those aiding her, but Erwin has none to give—he has not risked life and literal limb so all they've worked for can be broken by a witless fool in a crown that doesn't belong to him.

 

**#47 - Valiant**

"When I was a boy, I wanted to be like one of the warriors in the old stories, a knight, honorable and brave… I think childhood me would be very disappointed to see what I've become," Erwin whispers into the dip where Levi's shoulder meets the graceful upswing of his neck, and Levi squirms beneath his mouth, closes his eyes and quivers at the gentle touch of Erwin's tongue, and says, "You're closer to it than you think."

 

**#29 - Jewel**

The poets immortalize their lovers' eyes by the cut of a diamond, the glint of an emerald, and leave them in the earth, but Erwin sees only the whole of the night sky when Levi wakes in the morning—beautiful and distant and without walls.

 

**#36 - Sordid**

"No, no, it's _filthy_ ," Levi whines into the mattress, fingers white where they threaten to tear the sheets and voice stretched thin like a rubber band; Erwin smiles and spreads him further, bares him—trembling, vulnerable, hot—and, ravenous, leans down to feast.

 

**#30 - Just**

The crown slips down over golden hair, a little too big and all the more charming for it, and when Her Royal Highness Historia Reiss meets Erwin's gaze, she beams, and he does not offer his heart to her—he places the hand he still has over his chest, though, and bows.

 

**#48 - Virtuous**

Perhaps a bit too comfortable in his skin, Levi stretches out across Erwin's bed, all pale flesh and subtle, corded muscle, and peers up at Erwin through his lashes, mouth flat but eyes sparking with humor and lust; Erwin says sheepishly, "I thought you'd… never done this before," and Levi rolls his eyes and deadpans, "Yeah, that's me: pure as the driven fucking snow."

 

**#31 - Smirk**

"Lay off the second helpings of bread, you ox, and you should fly fine," Levi snarls and the adjusts the straps on the left side of Erwin's harness, ducking his head to hide the smile he thinks Erwin can't see.  

 

**#32 - Sorrow**

He doesn't miss his arm—he can write just as well with his left hand, and the way his empty sleeves are pinned up make him look very distinguished, if he does say so himself—except on the nights when Levi comes to him with a craving for his touch and has to settle for an effort less than what he deserves.

 

**#33 - Stupidity**

"I mean it, Hanji, _no_."

 

**#34 - Serenade**

Levi's body is an orchestra—there is the low longing groan of a bow sliding across a cello's strings in the dip of the back of his knees, the airy and sweet raindrops of a flute in the skin behind his ear, the press of piano keys in the steps of his ribs—and with it, through it, in it, Erwin conducts the most astonishing symphonies.

 

**#37 - Soliloquy**

Hands scarred from battle and a life Erwin's never known grasp at him, pull his jaw down so a mouth can slide against his, stopper his words, drag across the skin of his chin, his cheek, his nose, whispering, "Shut up, shut up, _shut up_."

 

**#38 - Sojourn**

He's come farther in this life than he ever expected, and he knows that he won't outlive the war, that there's a Titan out there that will come back for the rest of him, and he's okay with it, but sometimes… sometimes he wakes to the tickle of soft hair beneath his chin, the press of skin and muscle and bone against him, soft exhales over where his heart gives quiet, content beats, and he gathers Levi impossibly close and prays for his journey to continue just a little longer.

 

**#39 - Share**

Three days after a blade is held to his throat in the forest, Erwin brings Levi a cup of tea on a small saucer, and together they stand at his office window and watch their loyal subjects turn as one and offer their lives.

 

**#40 - Solitary**

There is a slight crack at the top of the wall that is his favorite; the setting sun pools red and gold into the dip as if it means to seal it up, and he sits next to it occasionally and counts down to the day he can make it large enough to fit humanity through.

 

**#41 - Nowhere**

It belonged to his father's mother and is clearly in danger of crumbling to pieces, but he hands Levi the book and opens to the two-page spread, watches as thin, nimble fingers trace over longitudes and contour lines with deliberate care, and when Levi murmurs, "This is what lies beyond the wall," Erwin sits next to him and says just as softly, "And someday, Levi, it will be ours again."

 

**#42 - Neutral**

There's a dirty, orange light reflected in Levi's eyes, a hellish sort of flame, but nothing penetrates his expression as they stand together and watch the scattered pieces of Rod Reiss burn to nothing at the feet of their queen.

 

**#43 - Nuance**

"What," Levi demands, but it rides the back of a soft breath, a self-conscious thing that wraps itself in air and believes it to be armor; Erwin reaches out to trace the dimple that deepens at his touch, the tiny scar notched in a thin brow, and Levi's expression is otherwise nonplussed but Erwin reads him like a book, studies him like a painting, sees him for the man he doesn't believe himself to be, and says, "Nothing."

 

**#44 - Near**

It's muscle memory that moves him now—he's too far gone to put any thought behind each even roll of his hips, the slide of his cock into Levi's exhaustedly grasping body, the world narrowed down to wet gasps and whimpers, gritted teeth, sweat-slick hands, and it's been minutes or hours or years since they started, but it's not enough, not nearly enough, and Erwin won't stop until it is.

 

**#46 - Horizon**

His boots break the line where stone meets the sky, and he stares until he squints and is forced to avert his gaze, the sun too bright, the sky too open, and he has no idea where it ends—this world that has no need for walls.

 

**#49 - Victory**

The last one falls with an anti-climactic thud, and before anyone can say the obvious, before another breath is taken, Levi throws his blades to the ground and begins to walk, shedding the maneuver gear like a molt, ripping the straps from his body with shaking hands, and he walks faster and faster and faster until he's running, chest heaving, eyes full, and Erwin has almost no warning before Levi launches himself at him, wrapping around him in a battle-weary embrace, trembling with something too big to name, and whispering, "Ask me now… Erwin, I want you to ask me now."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> prompts are from 1sentence's [beta theme set](http://1sentenceorder.livejournal.com/1531.html).


End file.
